Chapter 273: European Qualifiers: Scotland, Part

Manchester in England is actually very close to Glasgow in Scotland, only 350 kilometers away. It only takes 3 hours to get there by train, and less than an hour by plane.

However, Ricardo cannot go directly to the Italian national team's next game destination. Instead, he must first return to Milan, Italy, 1300 kilometers away, to join the national team, train for three days, and then travel with the team to Glasgow, Scotland, 1500 kilometers away to face the life-and-death battle...

The distance has increased from 350 kilometers to 2800 kilometers. Ricardo naturally wouldn't mind passing through Sarafina's boudoir not far from Heathrow Airport in London, the largest city in the UK...

But just as the two were practicing the art of sex to relieve their fatigue from the journey - clapping for love, Sarafina's mixed-color roommate Olivia suddenly knocked on the door and exclaimed that there was big news! This girl must have deliberately disturbed the rhythm of the two clapping. They had to clap harder and longer to make Sara retaliate louder!

Oh, this big news is about Serie A. It's a little weird, a little sad, and a little helpless. In fact, this news was two days ago. Because of a fan riot, three Serie A games have been postponed or suspended, and the current round of Serie B and Serie C leagues have all been postponed.

However, what Olivia wanted to share with the two with ill intentions was the revelation of the facts that the omnipotent Uncrowned King had just revealed. As the investigation deepened, more witnesses, evidence and details were added, and the facts were gradually restored; and naturally, the media channels with great powers got the police information first-hand and made it public.

The cause of this fan riot, in the words of the Northeastern gentlemen, is two sentences: "What are you looking at?!" and "What's wrong with looking at you?!"

Sandri, who runs a clothing store with his father, is 26 years old and has two hobbies, music and Lazio. Sandri goes to cheer for Lazio at almost every game. He originally planned to give up the league match against Inter Milan this weekend because Sandri thought, "Forget Inter Milan, we will definitely lose." But in the end, several friends persuaded him, and the god of death began to beckon him...

Four Lazio fans drove to Milan to watch the match between Inter Milan and Lazio. They took the A-1 highway, the earliest highway in Italy, connecting Rome and Milan. It was a normal and happy journey.

According to a young man named Francesco who was traveling with Sandri, "When we arrived at Arezzo, we accidentally met a group of Juventus fans who were heading to Parma at a service area. In fact, we didn't have any dispute at the beginning. It was just that one person looked at us with strange eyes, and I asked him, what are you looking at? So the other person responded, what's wrong with looking at you, and threw a bottle at me..."

Then the curse code from the mysterious country in the far east summoned the god of death floating over Sandri!

The two sides started fighting, and tragedy was about to happen. On the other side of the highway, there was a police station. A policeman on the opposite side thought it was a violent robbery, so he fired a warning shot into the air and stopped the vehicles on the highway.

But both sides were frightened by the sudden gunfire and ran away quickly. The Juventus fans drove fast, while Sandri's group drove slowly. So this brave policeman, who didn't know whether he had drunk too much at noon or had a brain attack, and who didn't know where he got the confidence from, actually wanted to shoot Sandri's tires with a Beretta 4 2mm pistol across 66 high-speed lanes, 92 spare lanes, and a two-meter-high wire mesh in the middle of the road, about 9 meters away...

Of course, no one with any logic or reason would think that the policeman wanted to shoot Sandri while he was running with the police pistol, which had a theoretical range of only 100 meters. If he could hit the target accurately, the Olympic air pistol gold medals from 10 meters to 50 meters would be won by other athletes...

But the god of death came just like that. The bullet aimed at the tire 66 meters away passed through the lane and the iron fence, and actually hit the carotid artery of Sandri who was trying to hide in the car! A fresh and innocent life was taken away by an ancient curse...

However, things did not end there. During the match between AC Milan and Atalanta held at another venue, extreme fans began to make trouble using Sandri's chicken, and soon it caused a large-scale riot... At the same time, an extreme Roma fan organization actually took the initiative to contact the Lazio fan organization to prepare for a large-scale protest!

So, a Lazio fan was going to Milan to watch the match between Inter Milan and Lazio. When passing through the service area, his companion shouted the forbidden phrase "What are you looking at" to a Juventus fan, and was shot in the head by a police officer with a pistol from 66 meters away. Oh, it was a shot through the neck and he died, but that was almost the same. This triggered a large-scale riot among AC Milan, Atalanta and Roma fans!

Therefore, the onlookers who did not know the truth could not help but sigh: What kind of nonsense is this?

After hearing the news from Olivia, Ricardo and Sarafina sighed.

Sarafina couldn't help but hug her lover tightly, and worried about everyone's safety: "Ricardo, when you return home, be careful of those radical fans in Italy! English fans are also notoriously crazy. Our area has not been peaceful recently. Two weeks ago, Olivia's panties were stolen in a suspected burglary! We couldn't sleep for several nights until the property management arranged 24-hour surveillance cameras and security access control..."

"By the way, Ricardo, do you want me to hire a security guard for you too? Ricardo?"

Ricardo, feeling guilty, said: "...Hmm? Hmm! Oh...security guard? No need for that. I'm a boy. I can protect myself..."

@

Five days after Ricciardo reports to the national team, Italy will face Scotland in Glasgow, where a draw will see them qualify for the European Championship finals. A loss will see them out of the competition and bid farewell to the 5 European Championship. It can be said that this is Italy's most important match since the World Cup final.

Facing the life-and-death battle against Scotland in this round, the Italian coach Donadoni convened a large list. Except for Chiellini, who could barely be considered a half-brother, none of Ricciardo's brothers were selected, and the rest were all famous veterans with a bad reputation.

As the key battle to qualify for the European Cup, it can be said that this round's lineup is basically the main framework for next year's European Cup. Therefore, for the honor and higher value and treatment, Italy can be said to have sent out all the elites, from Luca Toni, Pirlo, Riccardo Ricci, Camoranesi, Perrotta, Gattuso, Cannavaro, Buffon and other World Cup players, to Di Natale, Ambrosini, C-Lucarelli and other recent outstanding players in the national team, all should be present!

But AC Milan, which had 6 players selected, did not even have the man who lived on the offside line, Filippo Inzaghi!

You know, just a week ago, when AC Milan challenged Shakhtar Donetsk away, Inzaghi contributed two goals and one assist, tying Muller's record of 62 goals in the Champions League and becoming the best scorer in the history of European wars! But he was not selected for the national team's roster this time, which is somewhat strange.

Gilardino, Inzaghi's substitute at the club, was selected, as was Quagliarella, who was a starter for Udinese this season but only scored two goals...

@

In the past two years, Scotland has been in the same group with Italy twice in major tournaments, and has not won any of the three encounters. In the World Cup qualifier in September 3, Kenny Miller scored the first goal at Hampden Park, but Grosso deflected the ball into the net in the 2005th minute, giving the visiting team a point. As a result, the Scots could only stay at home and watch Cannavaro lift the gold cup in Germany a year later.

Conceding the first goal is not good either. In last year's qualifying match in Bari, the Italians scored the first goal and then played their most familiar defensive counterattack. Scotland had the advantage of ball possession but could not score, and eventually Italy seized the opportunity to score two goals in a row.

However, the Scottish team is also confident, because Scotland has performed well at home in this qualifying round. At its own Hampden Park Stadium, Scotland has won the past five home games, scoring 15 goals and conceding only 3 goals!

2007年11月17日下午17时，2008年欧洲杯预选赛B组开始一场关键角逐，意大利作客格拉斯哥汉普登公园球场，挑战高出本队1分但多赛1场的苏格兰。意大利只要本场不输球便基本锁定出线席位。

There were no surprises in Donadoni's starting lineup. Panucci replaced Oddo who had just recovered from injury. Camoranesi beat his Juventus teammate Iaquinta to play, forming a trident with Toni and Riccardo Licci. Captain Cannavaro tied Zoff's record of 112 appearances for Italy.

Italy ostensibly used a 4-3-3 formation, but chose Camoranesi and Ricci to start instead of Di Natale, in order to change to a 4-5-1 formation when defending, which was a very solid choice.

The goalkeeper is No. 1 Buffon;

The defenders from right to left are No. 2 Panucci, No. 5 Cannavaro, No. 6 Barzagli and No. 19 Zambrotta;

AC Milan's iron triangle is in the midfield, with No. 8 Gattuso and No. 13 Ambrosini teaming up to protect the core of the organization, No. 21 Pirlo;

The front trident is No. 16 Camoranesi and No. 17 Li Qi on the two wings, supporting No. 9 Luca Toni who is in the middle!

There are also a number of famous players on the bench, such as the second goalkeeper Amelia, the great left-back Grosso, Li Qi's European Youth Championship teammate Chiellini, Li Qi's long-time roommate De Rossi, Perrotta who was squeezed out of the starting lineup by Li Qi, as well as Di Natale and Gilardino.

The biggest suspense about the opponent Scotland's lineup was whether to use a single striker or two strikers. In the end, McLeish played it safe and let McFadden, who scored the winning goal for France, go forward alone, while Derby striker Miller sat on the bench on standby.

Scotland's 4-4-2 starting lineup also includes Fletcher, Lizzie's club teammate at Manchester United, and the two are in opposite positions, which seems to be an attempt to arrange a familiar person to freeze him.

What made Li Qi very unhappy was that the game was played in heavy rain. The rain was quite heavy. Although there was no water accumulation on the court, so the game could proceed as usual, as long as the rain continued for another 15 or 20 minutes, there would be water accumulation, which would seriously affect the ball control and performance of the technically superior Italian team, after all, there were 12 World Cup champions and 6 Champions League players in the team.

But some people said that the heavy rain would also affect the Scottish team's ball control. But the Scottish people would not think so: Control the ball? Why control the ball? Kick the ball towards the Italian penalty area, then charge into the goal and that's it!

So Li Qi thought about it and knew that he still had to fine-tune Donadoni's conservative opening tactics. He had to grab a wave of starts, otherwise the non-stop heavy rain would pull us to the same level as Scotland, and then we would be defeated by the home team with rich experience in hand-to-hand combat...

Italy wore a new white away jersey, and the players wore black armbands to mourn Lazio fan Sandri. Buffon wore a rain cap. Scotland wore a blue home jersey that was so dark that it was almost ink-black. Looking down from the stands, the black and white sides were clearly divided and ready to fight!

However, after the home team kicked off, Li Qi rushed into the Scottish hinterland like a sharp arrow and pressed the ball-carrying player closely. Although this was a little different from the opening tactics arranged by Donadoni, in the first few minutes, everyone was full of energy and focused, and it was a normal choice to grab a few minutes in the heavy rain to warm up and stretch their muscles. So the whole Italian team was pushed forward by Li Qi, the rabbit who violated the tactics.

But this wave had a miraculous effect.

One minute into the game, Li Qi and Tony's pressing worked, winning a throw-in from the left side of the frontcourt. Then, Zambrotta quickly threw the ball in from the left sideline, Li Qi turned his back to let the ball go, quickly cut into the penalty area, and then aimed at the center and made a low pass with his left foot!

Luca Toni understood the situation and flanked the defense. He took the first shot from 6 meters in front of the goal, using an unconventional shooting action that is rarely used by big players, and shot the ball with the outside of his right foot!

The ball went straight past the Scottish goalkeeper Gordon and into the upper left corner of the goal! 69 seconds into the game, 1-0, Italy got off to a dream start! This was Luca Toni's third goal in the two-round match.

Li Qi's surprise attack at the start of the game achieved an almost perfect effect! In this way, Scotland had to score two goals to regain the initiative, while Italy, who was good at defensive counterattacks, had more room for maneuver.

However, Li Qi did not want to miss the opportunity. Before the water accumulated, Italy was in high spirits and Scotland was still a little confused after being attacked. He tried to win the next game. If they were two goals ahead, Li Qi believed that no team could easily win three goals in a game against Buffon and the Cardinals. Even if there was, it would definitely not be this Scotland team, otherwise they would have defeated other teams long ago.

Just one minute later, Scotland was in danger again. It was Li Qi who pressed hard again. Together with Ambrosini, they intercepted the pass from Scottish midfielder Ferguson, and then Li Qi simply passed the ball into the penalty area. The ball was a little slippery due to water, so Li Qi passed it a little too far. Luca Toni got in but had missed the shooting angle when he controlled the ball.

So Toni once again demonstrated the comprehensive skills that an all-around center forward should have. Instead of attacking the goal blindly, Toni observed for a moment and then made a low inverted triangle pass to the middle on the left side of the penalty area. Camoranesi who followed up received the ball and volleyed it 9 meters in front of the goal!

Unfortunately, in order to avoid the flying interception of Scottish center back McManus, Camoranesi's volley also went over the crossbar...Italy missed the golden opportunity of two lightning strikes at the beginning of the game!

But they didn't win for a few minutes. After the high-speed confrontation in the opening stage, the rhythm of the game slowed down and Italy played its specialty of retreating and counterattacking. After all, Li Qi couldn't always violate the tactical requirements of the head coach. If he messed up, he would be replaced, not to mention that they were already one goal ahead.

And even if Li Qi wanted to, the other big brothers in the national team would not go crazy with Li Qi. It would not be good to be bullied by the head coach, and missing the European Cup next summer would be even worse. The key is that if the team lost the game due to a home break, they would not be able to take the blame.

So after the Italian formation was recovered, Scotland's offensive gradually increased, especially the long pass attacks from the wing. After all, the home team was the lagging side, and they had to attack and show momentum amid the thunderous cheers of the fans!

……